Bundle it into tens
Hand out a pile of straws and say "Count them, but every time you hit ten, rubber-band a bundle." Ten bundles become a hundred. When kids physically build 236 out of bundles and loose straws, the counting-to-1,000 work stops being memorized and starts making sense.
Why it works: going from real objects to pictures to symbols is a core recommendation of the U.S. Department of Education's elementary math guide.
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